


hide and seek

by flowersandsunshine



Series: music of the heart [2]
Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Gen, I am so sad, Lolilo, More angst, Song fic, hero being angsty, nmtd - Freeform, this is so sad guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 16:45:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6203026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersandsunshine/pseuds/flowersandsunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hero deals with the emotional aftermath of her sixteenth birthday.<br/>Song fic set to the song "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap.<br/>Trigger warning for slut shaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hide and seek

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This was written in thirty minutes and is completely unedited, so if there are any mistakes, that's why. It's all my fault. :)

1\. Where are we? What the hell is going on? / The dust has only just begun to form / Crop circles in the carpet / Sinking, feeling, spin me around again / And rub my eyes / This can’t be happening

Hero stared at the wall a lot now. It’s not that there was anything particularly interesting about a wall; no, rather, it was the one place she knew to be safe and kind and clean and fair in this spinning world. After her birthday, she… She didn’t know how to keep holding on. So she stared.

Ursula noticed. Of course Ursula noticed. Ursula noticed everything, whether she had a camera in front of her face or not. There were a lot of silent hands on shoulders, of comforting looks over mugs of tea, of whispered assurances when Hero saw Claudio in the hallway. Ursula always noticed. 

Hero was tired of being noticed, though.

Thanks to the vlogs, her story was a headliner in the school gossip column. She could hear their whispers as she passed by, “That’s her!” being hissed as she opened the door to her next class.

She always sighed and set her shoulders. It was all she could do.

\---

Leo’s birthday offered a welcome distraction from her. She looked at herself in the mirror and smoothed down her dress, her hair, her emotions. She checked her makeup for the fifteenth time.

Beatrice poked her head in the door. “You coming?” she asked.

Hero stood up straight and smiled brightly. “Of course!” she said in a chipper tone, following her cousin into the hall and down the stairs. 

 

It was a mistake. As soon as the candles were lit, she began to shake. And once she began, she couldn’t stop. Suddenly, the world was spinning faster than she could hold on and she found herself on the floor.

She heard Ben’s voice, felt Beatrice’s hands on her hair, heard Leo whisper something urgently, heard her mums talking to each other in intense tones, saw the ceiling getting closer and closer, felt the heat of the candles searing into her brain, clouding her vision, ceiling getting closer, everything getting darker, Beatrice’s hands on her hair, Benedick beginning to fade away, everything getting closer, closer—

\---

“I’m fine,” Hero insisted.

“Are you sure?” Dogberry asked. He always looked so earnest, sincere. He was a wonderful boy with a beautiful heart.

“I’ll be fine,” Hero amended. “For now, I just… want to figure out what my place in the world is again.”

Dogberry motioned to Verges and stood. “Well,” he said as Verges joined them, “I do sincerely hope you will allow me to assist you, should you ever need it for any reason.”

“Thank you,” Hero said honestly. “I appreciate that so much.” She smiled at Verges. “Georgia.”

Verges smiled back and they walked away.

Hero sighed and leaned back against the wall, the solid wall, always there for her, never spinning out of control.

Claudio walked by the bookshelf across the library and Hero tried not to flinch. She willed herself to stay calm, pushed herself against the wall. He may have turned her world upside down, but she was stronger than he knew. She was a superhero, smiling mask and all.

\---

She started putting in her headphones more.

It was how she stayed safe.

\---

Hero found herself tossing and turning for many nights in a row. Sleep refused to come easily as thoughts raged in her mind, thoughts she had tried so long to get rid of.

Slut. Slut slut slut slut slut why are you such a slut why did you ever go out with Claudio what if he’s right of course he’s not why would he use that word why would he ever hurt me why would he if I didn’t do anything wrong why can’t I just sleep why

Of course, with the sleep came the nightmares. Nightmares of candles and shouting and spinning and of her body bursting from the inside out, confetti and party favors spilling out from where her organs should have been, colors disappearing, shouting, and the scent of a house burning down, one word being shouted over and over again.

 

Slut.

 

\---

2\. Only marks appear on walls / Where pleasure moments hung before / The takeover / The sweeping insensitivity of this / Still life 

Hero stared at the pictures that hung on her walls. Ursula had taken most of them. She had taken a few on her phone. They were full of happy, smiling people, people vibrant with color and joy still on their faces. They were a group, bonded by happiness, having never tasted tragedy together. They were all happy.

She reached up and touched one picture with Claudio and herself. They had their arms around each other and were grinning, eyes crinkled at the corners, Claudio looking like he was in the middle of a sentence, Hero looking like she was about to laugh.

She didn’t really feel like laughing anymore.

Reaching up, Hero grabbed one corner of the picture and attempted to pull it down.

The picture ripped straight down the middle, and with it came a relief so strong Hero began to take down all the rest with all the people who had hurt her in the past year. 

Down came a picture of Leo kicking the football, a magnificent one that made her eyes water.

Down came the picture of Pedro and Balthazar she had taken not long ago, both of them smiling, the sun shining around them. That day had been a beautiful one—one she had spent with Claudio. That was only a couple of weeks before her birthday.

Down came another picture of Claudio. And another.

Her hand wavered over a picture and she stared intently at the dark shape in the background. She hesitated to pull it down, because it was a particularly nice photo of Beatrice and herself, but it was definitely John in the background.

She ripped it down.

\---

She ended up doing not much for the rest of the year. Everyone was leaving anyway, and she had nothing left to do. School was boring. Her friends were busy. She wasn’t sure she wanted to spend time with them, anyway.

Meg suggested she get into theater, but she was hesitant to do so. She wasn’t sure she had the energy to commit to that.

Instead, she stayed still, letting life come to her and pass her by at a speed that became frightening after a while. She felt like she was in the middle of a train station, with train after train whipping by, not stopping long enough for her to get on board the train. Instead, she watched as passengers moved on with their lives, leaving her behind with only Claudio and John as company.

Her two favorite people.

What cruel tricks life could play.

\---

3\. Blood and tears / They were here first / Mm, what’d you say? / That you only meant well / Well, of course you did / …You decided this

Hero was engrossed in reading “The Importance of Being Earnest” when she felt, rather than saw, someone sit across from her. She tore her eyes away and felt the instinctual flinch when she stared into Claudio’s eyes. “Claudio,” she said, hoping her voice sounded light and carefree. “How are you?”

“Good.” Claudio nodded at the play. “Did you join theater?”

Hero nodded. “I thought it would be good to add some variety into my life. You know, since most of our friends are gone,” she added.

“Of course.” 

They sat in silence for a while before Hero returned to reading.

“Hero,” Claudio interrupted.

“Yes?” Hero asked.

“I just…” Claudio hesitated. “I know you don’t want to hear it again, but I really am sorry.” He paused and waited for a response. It never came. “I honestly thought you were hurting me, and in the process, I hurt you, and I am so, so sorry. And things are weird between us, and they may always be weird between us, but I am willing and… and I want to make things less weird between us.”

Hero sucked in a breath as all the words and memories flashed through her mind.

Slut. Bitch. Candles. First love. Second chances. 

Slut. Slut. Slut. 

Hero felt the familiar prick of tears hit her eyes and she shook her head softly. “I believe we all deserve second chances. Do you?”

Claudio nodded, confused but looking hopeful. “Does that mean—”

“Even me?” she added.

“What do you mean?” he asked, taken aback.

“I…” She bit her lip and closed her eyes, letting a tear fall unchecked. “Do I deserve a second chance?”

“What could you possibly need a second chance for?” Claudio asked softly, reaching over to take her hand.

She drew it back quickly, her heart pounding faster at the brief contact, her world beginning to rock again. “I deserve a second chance to rebuild who I am. Without you.” Tears were falling freely now as she stared into Claudio’s face. “I’m so, so sorry, Claude. I just can’t be around you right now.”

He nodded and stood slowly. “Then I should go.” He took a step before turning back to her. “I am sorry.”

She nodded. “I know. I don’t know that it’ll ever be okay, though.”

And he walked away. 

\---

Ursula looked sympathetic even over the Skype screen.

Hero wiped her eyes and wrapped her arms around her legs, hugging them close to her chest. “So. Yeah. Claudio and I definitely aren’t friends anymore.”

“Good.” Ursula’s voice was laced with bitterness. “He may deserve a second chance, but not with you. Not after what happened.”

“And the worst thing is… He made it seem like… Like I was a part of the problem.” Hero let out a fresh sob and shook her head. “Like it was my fault somehow we didn’t work. Like I’m the reason he haunts my dreams.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Ursula peered at the screen. “You know that, right?”

Hero simply buried her head in her legs and shook her head.

“Listen to me, Hero. It was him. He made the choice to publicly humiliate you. He made the choice to ruin your birthday, and cakes, and the birthday song, and everything for you. He should have been mature and talked to you in private, or simply disregarded what Peter and John were saying, but he didn’t. This is not on you.”

Hero sniffed and was struck with a thought. She tried to push it away, far into the recess of her mind, so she could avoid hurting Ursula, but it popped out anyway.

“You could have not posted the video of my public humiliation on your channel.”

And she ended the call.

\---

4\. Speak no feeling, no, I don’t believe you / You don’t care a bit, you don’t care a bit

After that, Hero learned to hold herself a bit straighter. She knew there were eyes following her everywhere. People from all over the world were talking about her. She was on the internet. She saw the comments people made. 

People called her an angel. People said she was too hard on Claudio. People called Claudio a dirtbag. And worse. Much worse. None of it mattered. None of the words or the emotions connected with the words felt real.

Hero began to feel that if she was going to be in the public eye so much, she might as well act confident. 

Ursula apologized. She took the video down. Hero thanked her, and things fell back to what seemed like normal there. It was hard to tell, with an ocean between them.

Claudio apologized. Again. And again. He didn’t know how to let it go.

Peter apologized even more, though. He seemed to hate himself. (Hero wondered if he actually cared about her – or if this was all about his self-loathing.)

John became a part of her life somehow, even driving her out to Wellington when Leo fell sick.

(That was when she realized just how much she was in the public eye. The condolences she received from everyone who had ‘watched the video online’ was overwhelming. She wanted to hide, to sink back against the wall, to stop the world from spinning around her, but she stood tall.)

Everyone apologized. None of it really felt real.

Hero applied to universities in Australia. She also thought about traveling, by herself. She got a job and began to save up money. 

People always saw her mask, the smile she hid behind. Nobody looked for the real Hero, the Hero that was in pain and crying out for help constantly. Balthazar was the only person who even came close, but he was so busy with Peter that he missed most of her pain. 

She began to realize that when the world was spinning out of the control, the only thing she could do was put some war paint on her face, slide some heels on her feet, walk as tall and straight as she could, and keep smiling.

People apologized. People told her how sorry they were about her birthday, and about Leo, and for not trusting her. It didn’t matter. Whether they meant it or not, it didn’t matter. 

She was beginning to really find herself for the first time in her life.

**Author's Note:**

> hahhahahaa this is painful but i couldn't get it out of my head


End file.
